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From Africa to Europe and back: refugia and range shifts cause high genetic differentiation in the Marbled White butterfly Melanargia galathea by Jan C Habel; Luc Lens; Dennis Rödder; Thomas Schmitt is a Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology article available to read on EtoBox.

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## Background The glacial-interglacial oscillations caused severe range modifications of biota. Thermophilic species became extinct in the North and survived in southern retreats, e.g. the Mediterranean Basin. These repeated extinction and (re)colonisation events led to long-term isolation and intermixing of populations and thus resulted in strong genetic imprints in many European species therefore being composed of several genetic lineages. To better understand these cycles of repeated expansion and retraction, we selected the Marbled White butterfly __Melanargia galathea__. Fourty-one populations scattered over Europe and the Maghreb and one population of the sibling taxon __M. lachesis__ were analysed using allozyme electrophoresis. ## Results We obtained seven distinct lineages applying neighbour joining and STRUCTURE analyses: (i) Morocco, (ii) Tunisia, (iii) Sicily, (iv) Italy and southern France, (v) eastern Balkans extending to Central Europe, (vi) western Balkans with western Carpathian Basin as well as (vii) south-western Alps. The hierarchy of these splits is well matching the chronology of glacial and interglacial cycles since the Günz ice age starting with an initial s

Who reads From Africa to Europe and back: refugia and range shifts cause high genetic differentiation in the Marbled White butterfly Melanargia galathea?

Author

Jan C Habel; Luc Lens; Dennis Rödder; Thomas Schmitt

Publisher

BioMed Central; Springer (Biomed Central Ltd.); London: BioMed Central, 2001-; Springer Science and Business Media LLC (ISSN 1471-2148)

Published

2011

Language

EN

Field

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences)